Jury selection uses up first day in Fritz trial

Published 2:27 pm, Friday, April 22, 2016

By STACY LANGLEY

Tribune Staff Writer

CARO — The jury trial for the former Owendale-Gagetown softball coach accused carrying on a sexual relationship with a teenage female athlete was set to get under way Tuesday in Tuscola County Circuit Court but jury selection monopolized the day.

Tuscola County prosecutors have charged Cory D. Fritz, of Sebewaing, with 20 counts of criminal sexual conduct stemming from a relationship he allegedly carried on from October 2005 to March 2006 with a then 14-year-old Gagetown girl.

Potential jurors were questioned at length throughout the morning and well into the afternoon Tuesday by Circuit Court Judge Patrick R. Joslyn, the prosecutor Mark Reene and Fritz’s attorney, Kevin J. Rieman of Bay City. Jurors were questioned well into the afternoon by the judge, attorney and prosecutor. The questions included whether jurors knew anyone from the list of witnesses in the case, including a number of police officers and the alleged victim; whether they have ever been a juror before; and whether they could be fair and impartial in the case.

At one point Rieman mentioned to the jury that no decision had been made yet whether Fritz would take the stand to testify. Rieman did, however, elude to a deal that was made between the alleged victim and the prosecutor’s office that resulted in the teen not being “in trouble” for her alleged conduct.

There also was no mention during jury selection that the alleged victim in the case became pregnant as a result of the relationship with Fritz.

Reene, in a written statement to the Tribune in 2009, alleged a thorough investigation by police revealed Fritz’s teenage victim delivered a child in June 2006, and the remains of the infant were buried in a wooded area in Gagetown or Elmwood Township. No charges related to the buried remains of a child have been filed against Fritz or the teen.

During a court hearing in 2009, Reene and Rieman disagreed about whether the child was born alive. Rieman also has questioned whether a child ever existed.

Reene has alleged that Fritz was present when the baby died. He further claimed Fritz indicated the teen had dug a hole to dispose of the body. Just how much or exactly what the jury throughout the trial will hear about the alleged child is unclear. While investigators, with help from forensic anthropologists and cadaver dogs, searched the Gagetown/Elmwood Township area for the remains of a child, nothing to date has been reported found.

The case has been investigated by Det./Sgt. Mark Krebs of the Michigan State Police Post in Bad Axe, who was present during the jury selection on Tuesday. Krebs is also expected to testify during the trial.

Fritz remains free on bond set by the court.

The trial is set to get back under way this morning and is expected to last until Friday. If convicted of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, Fritz faces a maximum penalty of up to 15 years prison.